Angela Kelsey

“no dust on the furniture of love”

In my writing class tonight, I read Adrienne Rich’s “Living in Sin,” and then we wrote for ten minutes on this line:

“no dust on the furniture of love”
Gainesville, c. 1988.

Newly married (the first time).

Our apartment, the back half of an old house,

 on the outer edges, on the fringe, of the Duckpond neighborhood of

historic houses, intellect, old overhanging trees.

We had my grandmother’s couch, covered in a sturdy, sticky vinyl,

and a waterbed, won by me, the 27th caller,

always at risk of falling

through the sagging floor.

I wrote my grad school papers in a closet off the kitchen,

where my new vegetarianism was offended by his every-morning bacon.

I remember what I read (Clarissa)

 what I listened to (Clapton)

and the neighbors who followed Rajneesh.

But where was he?

No dust ever settled on him.